


The Search for the Nein

by creativityobsessed



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Language of the kind we see each week, Post Campaign 2 (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2020-10-06 18:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20511587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativityobsessed/pseuds/creativityobsessed
Summary: Ten years after The Big One, Kiri meets a young boy heading to Xhorhas in search of his mother, and she demands that he take her along. As they travel towards their destination and pick up more and more people who have been somehow tasked to help them, it becomes clear that something much bigger than them is going on.Potential spoilers for any episodes available via YouTube.





	1. Kiri

**Chapter 1**

Being the only bird in town is not easy. As Kiri wends her way across the Pentamarket square in Zadash she has to hop over feet that are carelessly stuck in her path just at the wrong moment, and change routes a couple times to avoid streets that are a little more crowded than normal. Most people expect her to be working for whatever criminal organization is in town, even if they don’t know what that organization is. She has spent too many nights in a holding cell for “stealing” to want to start that kind of fight today.

Finally she makes it to the grocer, her last stop of the day. The bell tinkles gently as she pushes the door open. The place is nearly empty and she sighs in relief. A small halfling woman looks up from her knitting behind the cash register. 

“I am Kiri!” Kiri announces her presence as she enters.

“Oh, hello Kiri! My, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, hasn’t it?” the woman smiles broadly. Kiri opens her beak in the closest approximation of a smile that she can manage.

“How is Pumat?” she asks, standing and reaching out for the bag slung over Kiri’s shoulder.

“Oh, and tell her I’m alright, since she usually asks,” Kiri tells her in Pumat’s drawling bass. The woman snorts.

“That man is too smart for his own good, though don’t you go repeating that to him, if you don’t mind Miss Kiri. What does he need today?”

It takes a few moments for Kiri to recite Pumat’s list and a few moments more for the woman to find everything she needs and package it in a bindle that Kiri’s wing-hands can manage. The woman babbles affably the whole time, but Kiri barely pays attention, simply agreeing when the woman asks questions, like ‘isn’t it nice to have visitors?’ Soon the woman has wrapped everything up, and Kiri hands over the money for the supplies. 

“Now, Kiri, don’t let him work you too hard, and tell him I expect to see you again more often or I’ll worry he isn’t feeding you properly, got it?” 

Kiri clicks her beak in amusement before parroting her words back at her.

“Very good. Off you go now, wouldn’t want you out after dark,” she says, shooing Kiri out the door, bell tinkling behind her.

Hardly even two blocks away, she hears snickers from behind her, followed by “Go back home, feathers!” She ducks her head and keeps walking, for once glad to be a bird simply because she doesn’t have tear ducts.

The snickers grow louder, even as she walks faster, and suddenly a hand grabs her from behind. She whirls around, a hand on her dagger, ready to slash her assailants to ribbons, just like Jester taught her. Instead, a different knife streaks out of nowhere, grazing the neck of the leader of the gang. Behind it, a halfling boy wearing brightly colored clothing steps out of the shadows, tossing another knife in his left hand. 

“We wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re attacking innocent citizens, now would we?” he says, eyes on the leader.

The leader, a tall human boy with brown hair, is smart enough to stay silent, but another boy in the back yells “She’s not innocent! She’s a kenku!” and a third mutters “You’re not from around here, what do you care?”

“Ah,” the halfling exclaims, “so you’re more comfortable appearing racist than attacking her, I see! Well, by all means, be racist, but it looks to me like this poor kenku has seen enough today, so you might as well be racist against me. I’m a halfling from Nicodranas, and I clearly have better fashion sense that you lot do.” He pointedly looks up and down the shabby but not quite rags that the boys are all wearing. 

Faced with such strangeness the boys begin to depart, though not without several glares at the brightly-dressed boy. Before any of them can change their minds, Kiri nods at the stranger in thanks and rushes off towards Pumat’s.

Slipping in the back door, she announces “I am Kiri!” to Pumats Three and Four who are making tea and working in the workshop respectively.

“Welcome back,” they chorus, and 3 adds “No trouble, I presume?” Kiri is tempted to use “Go fuck yourself” to tell him that there was, actually, but nuance is hard when her words are limited, so she just shrugs a little.

“Good,” he replies, and returns to the teapot. Crossing over to the pantry, Kiri begins unloading the bundle. In the other room the bell on the shop door jingles. 

“Be with you in a moment!” Pumat Four calls from the workbench. He doesn’t move, but a few moments later there are voices from the front of the shop. Clearly One or Two took the customer. 

Kiri finishes putting away the groceries and sneaks up to the doorway between the shop and the living space. She can’t really take care of customers because her vocabulary is so limited, but she always likes to see who it is and watch for a bit. She dreams of the day it will be Jester and her friends back at last, though she knows that even if they could, if they were seen in Zadash they’d probably be arrested on sight.

She ruffles her feathers a little and focuses in on listening. Whoever it is must be of the smaller races, since Pumat is standing at the lower counter. 

“I’m off on an adventure!” a male voice declares, “My mother was lost in the war, you see, but I just  _ know _ she’s not dead.”

“I see,” Pumat says flatly. They get one of these types of requests every few months, and Pumat has learned to keep his own thoughts about the war under tight control at all times. The man must be pretty perceptive, though, because he protests, “I know, I know, but my mother disappeared  _ before _ The Big One. If she’d disappeared  _ during _ The Big One, sure, missing, presumed dead, and you know, that’s what the Empire thinks, but she would check in with me all the time. Well, two weeks  _ before _ The Big One, she sent me a message that said she was going somewhere really far away and really dangerous, but that if they were successful then the big battle wouldn’t be as bad, and that she’d talk to me soon as she got back. But she  _ didn’t _ . If she had died, she was traveling with friends who knew how to contact me, so unless all of them died, which seems unlikely, I would have heard something. So I think they’re still alive, and I’m going to find out what happened to them.”

Listening from the back, Kiri’s breath catches. The events the man describes are almost exactly how Kiri experienced the last few weeks before The Big One with Jester. In the split second that it takes for him to take a breath, Kiri makes her decision and bursts out from the back.

“I am Kiri!” she shouts. Pumat jumps.

“Oh, Kiri! What are you doing out here?” he asks, but she’s focused on the customer in front of him. It’s the brightly-dressed halfling boy. 

“Hello Kiri!” he says cheerily, fiddling with a row of buttons at the cuff of his sleeve, “Fancy seeing you here!”

“You know him?” Pumat asks slowly.

“Ok, ok, ok,” she borrows from Yasha, gesturing at the boy.

“Huh. Small world, I guess.” 

“Not that small,” the boy jumps in. “She was getting roughed up earlier by some--” he searches for a term, “rascals. I stepped in, and I wanted to make sure she got home ok. Turns out this was exactly where I needed to go anyway.”

“Are those kids bothering you again?” Pumat asks.

“Rascals,” she imitates. Pumat sighs.

“I am Kiri,” she repeats, holding out a wing like a hand. 

“Luc,” the boy says, “pleased to meet you.”

“Luc,” she repeats quietly. He smiles at the imitation and grips the very tips of her feathers, careful not to pull.

“Thank you,” she says, in a Hupperdook accent. He just nods. 

“Anyway,” he turns back to Pumat, “I’m going to need some healing potions, as well as--”

“Come eat your dinner!” Kiri interjects. They both pause.

“I’m with a customer right now, Kiri,” Pumat says gently. Kiri clicks her beak in frustration. She searches her memory, but there aren’t any words to describe what she wants to say.

“Go away,” she starts, in Pumat’s voice from the very first time they met, and, “with them,” in Mama’s voice. Pumat thinks a moment.

“You want to go with him,” he says, finally understanding. She nods vigorously and repeats after him. 

“I can’t condone this,” he says, “you’re not an adventurer.”

“Go fuck yourself!” she replies. It’s a little harsher than she really means it, but she really is going, whether he lets her or not.

Luc shifts uncomfortably foot to foot, until the “Go fuck yourself” comes out. He jumps and stares at Kiri, his eyes wide. Pumat, seeing his reaction, waves it off.

“Don’t take it personal,” he drawls, “It seems the first people she lived with had foul mouths and these things rub off on her easier than some people.” Luc blinks a few times, but still seems shaken. Kiri feels a flash of worry that he might not want to take her with him, but quashes it. She’s working on Pumat right now and dividing her efforts will make her even harder to understand.

To her surprise, Luc jumps in as she’s turning back to argue with Pumat.

“I’d be happy to have her along. Two is better than one, we can watch each other’s backs,” he says all of this in a rush. Kiri cocks her head at him.

Pumat Two pauses for a few moments before throwing up his hands. “Fine, fine. I can see I won’t talk either of you out of it. But you’d better come back Kiri, or your Mama will have my hide.” 

“Yes, I am a good girl!” she exclaims, throwing her wings around his waist in a hug. Pumat grunts.

“You come back tomorrow,” he says to Luc, “I’ll be sure she’s ready to go, and I’ll have your order ready as well.”

Kiri jumps and claps her wing feathers together. Luc buys the few things that are already ready for purchase and tells Kiri he’s staying at the Song and Supper Inn if she needs anything. 

* * *

That evening all four Pumats sit Kiri down for a talk.

“It’s dangerous out there,” Pumat Three says.

“There are criminals just waiting to make sure would-be adventurers don’t come back with their loot!” Four chimes in.

“And not to mention the people who’d rather see  _ you _ as a criminal than get to know you,” Prime adds, “You need to be  _ sure _ you want to do this.”

Kiri bobs her head, “That’s true.” She looks around all of them, her gaze unwavering. She’s not sure why, but she  _ needs _ to find Jester. If this boy is heading in the right direction, then that’s where she’ll start.

Prime sighs, echoed by Three and Four. “Alright. Let’s make sure you have the proper gear.”


	2. Setting off from Zadash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kiri and Luc set off for Xhorhas, but first they have to learn to communicate.

Luc arrives at the Song and Supper Inn and asks that a bundle of food be made up so he can take it up to his room. As much as he loves the atmosphere of a tavern - it reminds him of Auntie Marion’s place - the conversation with Kiri and Pumat shook him and he can’t quite stomach sitting in public tonight. After a few moments, the bundle of food appears in front of him. He absently sets a few silver on the bar and goes up to his room.

Dropping the bundle on the bed, he takes a piece of fruit out, tosses it in one hand gently, and then takes a bite. It’s sweet and perfectly ripe - better than he’d expected at a tavern. He takes another bite and savors it before pulling a journal out from under the mattress. It had been quite a trick getting it to balance properly between the ropes, but that made the hiding spot all the better. He sits cross-legged on the floor, balancing the journal with his elbow while holding the fruit so that all the juices drip down his wrist.

The journal is no small thing - it fills his lap when he opens it to one of the last few pages. It has clearly been filled, the pages fluffed and wrinkled with memories. There’s ribbons falling out here and there, and it is held shut by a string of buttons sewn together.

Grabbing a pen in the hand free of fruit he begins to write.

_ Dear Mom, _

_ It’s been ten years, five weeks, and three days since you last sent me a message _ , he starts, same as he starts every entry. _ I still miss you. _

_ Arrived in Zadash to see Dad’s sister, Dora. She was glad to see me, and to hear news of Dad. There wasn’t space in her little grocery to stay, so I found a spot in the Song and Supper Inn. It’s a good place, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. One of the better taverns along my route so far, though not quite as good as Auntie Marion’s place, of course. _

_ I needed to visit a magic shop - I used the last of my healing potions a few days ago when those gnolls attacked - so she directed me to The Invulnerable Vagrant. On my way there I met a very strange Kenku. She was being picked on, so I thought “what would Mom do?” and stood up for her. Luckily the little rascals didn’t want to deal with anybody who put up a fight, which I figured they wouldn’t, so they ran off. I hope you’d have been proud. The weird thing, though, is that I ran into her again, at The Invulnerable Vagrant! I was setting out to buy the potions I wanted, plus he had a nice ring of protection, which I can definitely use, and she just appeared from the back. She must have had some kind of relationship with the shop owner, but I’m not sure what it was. _

_ Anyway, she was all excited about something, and kept trying to convince him to let her come with me, without even asking me, it was very strange. I wasn’t going to let her - we could hardly communicate after all - but then she said something and it was so familiar. It reminded me of the messages from before you learned how, Mom. It was so long ago, and I was so young, but her voice reminded me exactly of Jester. _

_ How could she have Jester’s voice, Mom? This random Kenku in the middle of Zadash - how did she meet _ _ Jester _ _ ? _

_ Before I really knew why I was inviting her along. I don’t even know what she can do, but apparently she’s coming? I need to know how she knows Jester, and if she knows anything about how you disappeared, Mom. _

_ I love you. I miss you every day. _

He takes a few minutes to leaf through some other pages, lingering on some pages more than others. Then, slowly, he closes the book.

* * *

Luc gets up early the next morning, almost before the sun rises. Quickly and quietly he packs all of his belongings into a knapsack, checking three times to be sure the journal is safe at the bottom of the bag. There isn’t much to pack - a change of clothes for when he needed to wash them, a week’s worth of travel rations, a map of the Dwendalian Empire, and the set of three sharp daggers that go into his belt. Once everything is secure, he bounds down the stairs, looking for the innkeep. What he finds is a sleepy woman, propped up in a chair behind the bar. 

“Good morning!” he says and she startles awake, “I’ll take whatever you’re serving for breakfast, to go.”

She squints at him a moment.

“I think I could find you some bread? Porridge isn’t really a to-go kind of food.”

“Right,” he says, “That and a lump of butter would be great, thanks. Maybe some cheese?” he calls after her as she heads back to the kitchen. He climbs up a bar stool as best he can, and looks around the room. The tavern is mostly empty this early in the morning, though he can hear a few loud snores from a corner where someone most likely slept off the last of their drink.

Before long, Luc is on his way, hurrying up the nearly-empty streets on the way to the Invulnerable Vagrant. He steps inside just as he’s finishing the last of the bread - he’ll save the cheese for later - and is met with the odd sight of two versions of the firbolg shopkeep running back and forth between the display shelves and the young kenku. She’s outfitted in a hooded cloak and a cross-body bag, which the shopkeep is stuffing with all manner of items. In just a few moments, he’s shoved in ten different potions, another cloak, and an entire shield, which should not have fit, and yet somehow still made it inside with room for more.

He clears his throat and all three of them look up. 

“I am Kiri!” she says, jumping up and pushing the shopkeep out of the way.

“Hey Kiri,” Luc says with a chuckle, trying to hide the weirdness he feels now that he can hear the Jester-like lilt to this statement too, “You about ready to go?”

“Okay!” she says, and she turns to the two shopkeeps. “I miss you!” she coos. 

The shopkeep on the left grunts a little, and waves. Luc just barely keeps himself from shaking his head to try to remove the double-vision effect.

“You keep her out of trouble, you hear!” he says to Luc, instead of responding to Kiri. 

“Get into trouble!” Kiri says, hopping from foot to foot.

“I’ll do my best, sir, but it sure sounds like she wants the trouble,” Luc replies, “You said you’d have the rest of my potions this morning?”

“Right,” the shopkeep on the left says, and disappears into the back room for a moment.

“Look,” he says upon his return, “I gave most of the good stuff to Kiri. She has a bag of holding, and this way, you’ll have a reason to keep her-- well, willing to give you the things you need. But, just in case she’s down and you need some quick-” He hands over four basic healing potions, trailing off.

Luc studies the firbolg intently, but he’s hard to read. He clearly cares about the kenku, but there’s still no indication of why. _ He can’t be her father, _ Luc thinks, and then pauses mentally, realizing he really knows nothing of how kenku biology works. Still, it seems beyond the ability of even magic for a tall firbolg to-- _ Best not to think about it. _

It takes at least half an hour to get Kiri out of the shop, between all the goodbyes and last minute items the shopkeep presses on her. Finally, when the walking stick won’t even fit in the bag of holding because it’s too full of other things, Kiri somehow manages to convince him that they need to leave, and they walk out of the shop. Luc looks on the entire time, thinking of the tiny bits he can remember from his mother’s visits before she vanished when he was six, and does his best not to interrupt even though he ends up checking the position of the sun through the windows in the front doors every few minutes.

* * *

The walk between Zadash and Felderwin is long and hot. For the first half of the day it seems like they haven’t even left the shadow of the city walls. It’s slow going with Kiri, who isn’t used to walking on roads outside of the city. Luc keeps himself from complaining by imagining what Felderwin will be like when he gets there - he was far too young to remember it when he left.

When they finally stop for lunch, Luc decides it’s been long enough.

“So,” he says as nonchalantly as he can manage, “I’ve never met a kenku before. How does it- how does your communication work?” 

Her eyes flick up to him from the sandwich she’s nibbling on and she studies him for what feels like a long time before she says “Mimicking things.”

“Mimicking things…” he says, pretending to be thoughtful, “So, like, you have to have heard what you say before you say it? That’s why you have all those different voices.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she responds in a deep female voice. He mulls this over for a moment.

“So, someone must have taught you that ‘I am Kiri,’ right?” he asks.

“Jester!” she exclaims. Luc had been pretty sure, but hearing her confirm it feels weird.

“You met Jester? Then maybe you knew my mom! She traveled with Jester for a while,” he can’t help stumbling over his words a little in his excitement. She thinks a moment and then begins haltingly stringing together words.

“I am Kiri! A kid. Long time.” She suddenly switches from Jester’s voice to a man’s tenor with a Zemnian accent. “You know.” Without the accent switch it could have almost been a complete thought.

“It’s ok if you don’t remember,” he says quietly, “I just thought it was worth a shot.”

She shakes her head. “Try,” she replies in a flute-y child’s voice. She pauses briefly, then nods.

“Ooh I’m a captain,” she says in a low growly woman’s voice. It doesn’t ring a bell and Luc shakes his head. 

“Hello Kiri, I’m Cali!” she tries, but he just shakes his head again.

“Welcome to the Mighty Nein!” she says, cocking her head to make a question out of the exclamation. Luc suddenly can’t remember how to breathe. It’s his mother’s voice, and even though he was just six when she disappeared, he would recognize it anywhere. 

“That’s her,” he whispers. He clears his throat before continuing, “But you really shouldn’t say their name out loud, you know, people around here don’t like them much anymore.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” the deep female is back, but Luc thinks maybe he can hear just a hint of satisfaction there that belongs solely to Kiri.

Over the course of the afternoon, he asks her to tell him more things that his mom and her companions said, back when Kiri traveled with them. There’s a few voices he doesn’t recognize - a drawling bass that he mistakes for the shopkeep at first, and the two deeper women’s voices, one gruff, and one smooth. But a part of him is relieved. Here is someone who knows the people he’s looking for, who has good memories of them and wants to find them too. It must be a sign, and he’s willing to take any signs he can get.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Don't forget to love each other.


	4. A Meeting in Felderwin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TJ Lionett, disappointment to his parents and cleric of the Raven Queen, travels to find someone that the Raven Queen has told him he needs to help.

TJ Lionett has always been a disappointment to his parents, but never so much as when he announced his intention to become a priest of the Raven Queen.

_ Irresponsible, _ they said.  _ How could you leave us without an heir? _

_ Ungrateful _ , they said.  _ After everything we’ve done for you? _

But there’s no helping when a Goddess chooses you, and so TJ stood his ground, and bought lots of black clothes for good measure.

And so, when the Raven Queen sent him dreams of a quest that needed his help, rather than have that argument yet again, TJ packed up, left without saying goodbye, and started the long trek from Kamordah to Felderwin, to pick up, well, someone. That part wasn’t quite clear yet. 

He can hear the way the argument would have gone, though.  _ You had a  _ dream _ that someone in Felderwin needs your help so you’re just going to drop everything and leave us?  _ And _ you don’t even know who it is? There is no way we’re letting you do that. You’re a  _ teenager _ for the gods’ sake!  _ And then his mother would have swooned into a faint (possibly even from his father’s stern-ness), giving his father a reason to berate him further-- it was a mess waiting to happen, and one he didn’t have time for. He’d gotten the impression that whatever it was that needed him, it was urgent.

Now, though, less than a day away from his destination, he’s beginning to have second thoughts. He’s seen a few other people on the roads, but they’ve all taken one look at his dark-cloaked, raven-bedecked outfit and steered far clear of him. Even though the Raven Queen is an approved deity, her ties to death make her one that most people would prefer not to think about or encounter. At first TJ was glad of the way people left him alone - less need to explain himself - but now he realizes that this kind of living is simply lonely. The last few weeks of travel was the longest he’d been without talking to anyone, aside from the occasional innkeep or shop clerk in the towns where he stopped. For someone who had lived all his life with a father who couldn’t stop talking, even if it was just things he wasn’t interested in or complaints about his choices, it felt weird.

_ It’s probably about time to start looking for a place to camp, _ he thinks, noting the way the sky is turning orange. He probably  _ could _ push through the night and get there, but then he’d be exhausted during the day, which was when most people were out and he might just miss whoever needed his help. Besides, he’d made good time, he can afford to take one more night’s rest before heading into town. 

He scans the rolling hills to each side of the road, looking for a sheltered area where he could tuck in and avoid notice of any wandering creatures or malevolent people.  _ There _ , just ahead, there was a small copse of trees at the top of the next hill. He can’t afford a fire, higher up than all the surrounding area like that, but he might be able to climb a tree and secure himself in the branches.

A few hours later, he rouses himself from his meditation to discover that another group of travelers have made camp under his tree. They had the sense not to set a fire, thank goodness, but they are not being quiet, either. He shifts a little in the tree, trying to move off of a knot that has been digging into his back. His position is precarious enough that he can’t quite see them, and it doesn’t seem worth the effort to try to interrupt since they’re leaving him alone.

He falls back asleep listening to them, first as one does impressions so well that he can’t decipher which is their real voice, and then as the other sings a few quiet lullabies mixed in with a raunchy drinking song or two. It’s almost like having friends, and it’s comforting.

* * *

The next day when he wakes up the two travelers below his tree are already gone. He rolls up his small pack, glancing through quickly to make sure that nothing is missing, and clambers down to the ground. He whistles a bit as he walks the last few hours into the town proper.

Felderwin is much like all the other small communities he’s gone through. He’s lucky that it’s market day, so more people are out in the town square than usual. He knew, of course, that the Raven Queen would make sure he found the right person somehow, but having lots of potentials around makes it seem at least a little more likely. He scans the crowd, looking for the brightly clad person towering over the rest that he knows he’s supposed to find.

There! Over to one side he sees a young firbolg, leaning against a wall and doing much the same thing as him. Perhaps they also had had a vision? He pushes his way through the crowds, stumbling over the tail feathers of a kenku in his hurry.

“Excuse me?” he asks, “Excuse me?” The straw hat that leaves their face in shadow tilts up, and he can see the tips of brightly colored pink hair peeking out from beneath.

“May I help you?” they ask in a melodious voice. TJ takes a deep breath before continuing.

“This is going to sound very strange, but I had a vision from my goddess that I was supposed to be here and find you, because you needed my help.” The words trip over themselves, and he has to take a steadying breath afterwards just to stop shaking.

The firbolg removes the straw hat, and tilts her head a little to get a good look at him. 

“Are you a bird?” she asks.

“Uh. No? I’m a cleric of the Raven Queen.”

“Oh. Weird. I’m supposed to be helping a bird.” She pauses, seemingly unaware of how strange that statement sounded. “Well, I suppose you can tag along. Help me look for a bird.” 

TJ squints at her.  _ Is she serious? _ But she puts her hat back on, leans back on the wall, and continues to watch the crowd. 

For the first time in his quest, TJ feels unsure. This strange woman fits the description well enough, but how could he have been sent all the way across the Dwendalian Empire to help a woman who wanted to help a bird? Even if it turned out to be a raven, that seemed excessive, even for the Raven Queen. Nevertheless, he folded his arms and leaned up against the wall next to her, though his watch on the crowd was much less close than hers.

Two hours of standing in the hot sun later, the woman’s hand darts out and lands on the shoulder of a brightly-dressed halfling. TJ starts and stands up straight, tugging on his now-wrinkled black shirt.

“Hey, kid. You and your friend are on a quest and I’m supposed to help. Can we talk?” Her tone is laid back, but TJ can see the halfling grimacing in pain at her pinching grasp.

“Leave me alone!” he yells.

“Please,” TJ steps up, “We’ve had visions from our Gods. I don’t know why we’re supposed to help, but we are. I’m TJ and she’s--” he trails off, realizing he didn’t even ask her name.

“Clarabelle,” she says firmly, without loosening her grip. 

At that moment, a young black kenku steps from behind the halfling. She looks way up at the firbolg woman and then over at TJ and cocks her head in a face that is almost recognition. She puts one of her wings out toward the halfling boy and nods. 

“Welcome to the Mighty Nein!” she exclaims.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay in getting the next chapter up. The good news is episode 97 has me inspired enough to cheat on my dissertation with some fun writing for a while! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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